HIV Detection: Solid‐State Nanopore Detection of Protein Complexes: Applications in Healthcare and Protein Kinetics (Small 5/2013)

An individual nanopore drilled within an ultra-thin membrane created by M. J. Kim and co-workers provides a unique look into single-molecule structure and kinetics. The platform, described on page 750, can detect various subpopulations of protein–protein complexes and calculates their excluded volumes. Furthermore, the elevated electric field strengths within the pore can dissociate the freely translocating protein complexes, generating unique current signatures. The proposed method of locally unbinding protein molecules allows the specificity of diagnostic nanopore sensors to be enhanced, and the recently unbound state of a protein can be studied.